Staffers saddened at Pocono Mountain Charter School auction

Sunday

Aug 3, 2014 at 12:01 AM

Joanna, Denzel, Benjamin and Carlene.

JENNA EBERSOLE

Joanna, Denzel, Benjamin and Carlene.

The students' names still decorated shelves in one classroom at the vacant Pocono Mountain Charter School Saturday morning. Auction-goers browsed the room as the voice of the auctioneer echoed down the hall, growing nearer.

"I will miss you," read a note on the white board of another classroom. "#I'llNeverForgetYou!" said a second.

In a third classroom, a miniature table was stacked with children's books and bright pencil shapes decorated the carpet.

Outside, former kindergarten teacher Gail Murphy said it was once her classroom. A state board ordered the school to shut down this spring after years of litigation over its status.

The classrooms and offices and all their contents were auctioned off one-by-one throughout the day.

"I want my room," she said.

Murphy said she has a master's degree, which makes her often overqualified for the few local teaching jobs. She is still searching, and knows it will be strange not to return in the fall to her room.

"It's very difficult," she said. "This whole situation is sad and was avoidable."

"An empty school without children and students isn't good," Richard Tullo, a former security guard at the school standing with her, agreed.

The bulletin boards lining a main hallway in the school were bare, except one decorated with paper graduation hats and the traced, cut-out hands of 1st graders congratulating the seniors.

In another hallway, fifth-grade essays still decorated one board, where children wrote about their summer plans, from Walt Disney World Resort to local water parks.

Iris Martinez, from New Jersey, walked through the rooms. She said she does not know much about the school, but found the auction sad.

"It is sad when you see a school that's so empty and remember your classrooms you never forgot," she said.

Small, vacant desks surrounded Martinez.

"You're waiting for the kids in the fall," she said. "They're not coming back."

Auctioneer Bob Teel, of Teel Auctions, called out bids in the cafeteria, then near each room. The church that was the school's landlord has fought the auction of some items in court over the last few weeks, but Teel said the day was going smoothly.

"It's very difficult when you're liquidating assets of a place that has to be closed," he said.

Compton Ferreira, owner of Compton's Pancake House, bid on items for his restaurant. After walking through the former principal's office and other rooms, he said the items for sale struck him as being fairly new, which shows the investment of the people involved.

"It's sad, very sad," he said of the scene.

Sue Folk, executive director at Developmental Education Services, said she and Carol Miller, director of adult services, were also saddened.

"We were thinking about the teachers that have set up these rooms," Folk said.

But Miller added the auction was also an unusual opportunity to buy new curriculum, filing cabinets and bulletin boards for the day program for adults with intellectual disabilities that they would not have been able to afford otherwise.

"We'll use it to display their art work," she said of one of the bulletin boards.

Greg Pershyn, CEO of Gap Systems, said he has done IT consulting at the school since its start. He helped clear all the computers at the end, and said the school was like a family.

"There's a lot of wonderful teachers that were working here," he said.

Pershyn said he saw many of the students grow up. They knew the school might close, but kept coming.